Performance appraisal, though an important function of human resource/personnel management, has not received the degree of concern it deserves. This function, if properly exercised by organizations, can serve a number of purposes, mainly administrative and developmental in nature. However, despite these intended goals, performance appraisal seems not to be effective in most cases mainly due to the subjective nature of criteria (standard) of performance, lack of rater understanding of or

more »

... te training on performance appraisal, which consequently led to the less importance and emphasis attached to it. For an appraisal system to meet its desired goals, questions such as: 'What purposes should it serve?' 'Who should be in charge of evaluating performance?' 'What aspect of performance shall be appraised?' 'What method(s) should be adopted?' 'How often should appraisal conducted?' 'What does employee participation in and their perception towards the system look like?' 'What potential problems are encountered in the process and how can they be overcome?' and 'What is the importance of giving feedback and handling post assessment performance discussions with employees?' need to be addressed properly. This study has tried to address each of the above and other related issues by taking Dashen Bank S.C. as a case study organization. Accordingly, samples from the Bank's staff members (both supervisors or managers and non-supervisors) were selected and administered questionnaires and some interviewed with the objective of assessing the effectiveness of the appraisal system. The results are presented in this paper. While the practice by Dashen Bank S.C. has been that immediate supervisors are the people in charge of appraising employees, response from the sample respondents has indicated that others such as peers, subordinates, customers, or any combination of these should be allowed to participate if the process is expected to be more effective. It is identified that the appraisal format addresses different aspects of e [...]